Ramblin’ On, In Lieu of a Decent Post

by jen on January 7, 2008

Oh, hello, is it Monday?

1. I am in a daze, people. It is a sad, sad state of affairs when you get the Blackberry message on Sunday morning at 11:30, when you’ve already been up for two hours SO ANXIOUS, to hear that you don’t have to come in to work that day and you WEEP FROM GRATITUDE.

I am too old for this crap.*

Also, when you have spent many, many hours at work and your poor family and friends call you to check on whether you’ve gone insane or not, you have a tendency, to um, ramble on. Because you’ve had no one to talk to all week except for your coworkers, who do not want to hear about your bed frame issues, they want to know, HAVE YOU FINISHED THOSE UNANIMOUS RESOLUTIONS OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS IN LIEU OF A MEETING OR NOT?

OK, no one in my office yells (yet), but anxiety is high, dude. Would you like to check my blood pressure?

2. Before I blogged, I used to, um, have pretend conversations with someone in my head, you know, to work out how I felt about things. Try things on for size, pretending I was telling a story to a friend. You can refine your thoughts in the telling. I realized tonight, walking the 25-minute walk to the Trader Joe’s (exercise + chores, I am the Master of Multitasking. But only because I have to be.): now, IN LIEU, oh good grief, IN LIEU of a pretend conversation with someone, I write a pretend blog entry. Which I never post (see #1). Has this happened to any of you?

3. My Trader Joe’s is like, the mecca of hip. Oh Silver Lake, how do I love thee, let me count the cute, bearded boys toting reusable grocery bags. And you know, I am not. Hip. But luckily! It is also the mecca of WEIRD. In Hollywood, I felt out of place because my boobs didn’t reach my chin. Here, I can wear my glasses — which, HOLY COW I NEED NOW (I really thought I was immune to the curse of my family’s poor eyesight but apparently I just wasn’t doing enough due diligence) — to the store and I fit in. And I can trot out my 1979 Steve Martin Cruel Shoes baseball tee my lovely brother handed down to me and I am golden. Or wear my mother’s 1980 wool sweaters and skirts she bought in London when I was three.* I can be weird here.

4. I have yet to paint but the one nook (see #1), but I finally finished papering my built-ins (see above). I guess, looking at it from an outsider’s perspective, which is what you do when you posted a picture on the interweb, it’s not that exciting. But for me, each shelf represents a place, a period in my life (Paris, South and Central America, China (in dreams), Redding), and that shelf fourth down on the right full of empty vases? Gettin’ shoved aside in 2008. Ramblin’ on.

*Yeah, I turned 31 last Thursday. And worked ’til 11. SWEET. Also, I realized I’ve asterisked TWO ITEMS to remind you it was my birthday. Apparently I need some birthday wishes. I am 12. Well, 31, going on 12.

Number 2 is totally me. I don’t even blog that often, but there are still unfinished blog posts in my head, mostly about traveling. Sometimes I practice telling old stories to myself to see if I’ve changed how I tell it of if a new part of it is important now.

For as long as I can remember, I have narrated to myself in 3rd person. And yeah, that translates into lots of unwritten blog posts and unwritten “fiction.”

I also used to fairly frequently have the conversations I couldn’t actually have with people, with myself, out loud (usually imagining their responses except when these imaginary conversations were in french).

And I can never think of “6 weird things about me” for those memes. Actually that’s because I was quite ashamed of some of my quirks until recently.

hey birthday girl, a) I’m so proud of myself for having remembered your bday before this post! aha!! and b) you have built-in shelving? i’m sorry YOU HAVE BUILT-IN SHELVING. i can’t focus, i feel a little dizzy.

Happy Birthday!! Can I blame my incredibly lameness (and forgetfulness) on the storms? My present to you (besides the overdue housewarming/xmas present I’ve yet to send) will be a phone call during which you can ramble on about bed frames, shelving, and work-related stress (or any other stress for that matter). Talk to you soon!

Happy birthday! Happy new year! Delurking and interrupting my inner/outer personal dialogue to say hi and boy do I ever talk to myself. So much so that I often pretend I have been singing as I walk past people who have witnessed my tendency toward crazy.

With regard to #2, yes, this happens to me all the time. And sometimes I do write a blog post about what I was head-blogging, but then I delete it. But usually I just walk around blogging in my head. I think it’s the result of 8 years of blogging.

I think that’s also why I “narrate my life”. I don’t think I narrate, but all of my friends say I do. So it’s probably true. I’m just too busy narrating to notice.

and i’m with everyone else on #2. i read tons, and used to kind of write things in my head, to document them or think through them or something. for a while i got over that until i started blogging. and if i could somehow save it on my hard drive and transfer it to my computer, i’d post way more often.